


embodiment

by waveridden



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Gen, Season: COUNTER/Weight, Statement Fic (The Magnus Archives), The Magnus Archives fusion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:20:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24227998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waveridden/pseuds/waveridden
Summary: Noun. A tangible or visible form of an idea, quality, or feeling; one that embodies something. See also: avatar, candidate.(A Counterweight/Magnus Archives fusion.)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 15





	1. Grace / Beholding

**Author's Note:**

> Hi folks! This is a series of one-shots written in the style of statements from The Magnus Archives. Crash course on TMA in case you're not familiar: each episode is a recorded statement from someone who has had a supernatural encounter. In this particular case, the candidates are avatars of various scary entities - they have firsthand experience with the entities and embody them in some way or another.
> 
> Since TMA is a horror podcast, I've incorporated some light horror elements in here - please check each chapter's notes for content warnings!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Statement of Premier Vicuna of Sage, regarding her experience with the interplanetary human rights charity The Hands of Grace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: emotional manipulation, surveillance, implied violence

Lately I’ve been thinking about the greater good. I wonder where that idea came from. Not everything that’s good is created equal, of course, but why is that? How can something be both good and greater? That’s been on my mind a lot.

In some ways, it’s been on my mind for years. I started doing charity work when I was a teenager. Back then I didn’t understand how complicated it was. I thought all you had to do was show up. I thought the most work you would ever do was greeting people and maybe handing out sandwiches.

It’s so much harder than I imagined. Charity work is coordinating, and hiring, and planning missions. And now I’ve done all of that and more. I worked my way up the ladder one mission at a time, and the higher I climbed, the more I wondered about _goodness._ What is good? What good is greater? Eventually I started asking myself, well, who decides what good is greater? Who is allowed to make that decision?

The answer is simple. It’s me.

I should probably explain what the Hands of Grace is - or at least what it was at the beginning. When I found them as a teenager, they were just like any other human rights charity. They would pick a planet, send volunteers down, and find ways to provide resources and boost morale. I spent a lot of time slopping out soup that nobody wanted to eat, or doing puppet shows with children who couldn’t care less. It was the kind of work that made the world turn grey.

It’s funny now to think about how much I hated it. I spent every day thinking: is this it? Is this really all it’s meant to be? At first volunteering gave me such an inflated sense of importance. I thought I was important simply for showing up and doing the work, and I couldn’t understand why nobody else thought so. But the work was exhausting and thankless, and it wasn’t enough for me. Or, no, that’s not it - I was too much for it.

Wandering off during the missions wasn’t technically against the rules. We were encouraged to see the people, get to know the planets, learn to love them. They wanted us to feel like we were a part of the community. Grace, they would say, is born from empathy. It was heavy-handed, but more than that, it was wrong. I never believed them, not even when I was young and naive. I helped countless people without ever feeling a shred of empathy for them.

I would still go off and explore the cities, but I never got involved. Just watched. I saw people in the slums of Torru, the people hiding on Vyshe. I even did a stint on Joypark, trying to give the employees there a reason to live. I helped because I had to, sure, but mostly I wanted to watch. I wanted to see what made them into who they were, how they ended up living their lives. It wasn’t my job to watch, of course. But the watching was always a better fit for me than the helping.

Eventually I got hired on as staff with the Hands. By the time we got to Sage, I was a co-coordinator for the aid mission. I wasn’t quite in charge, but I was close. I’d seen dozens of cities on a handful of different planets, watching all the people I could. And I was sick of it. I was sick of every planet being the same, of all the repetition, of sitting in meeting after meeting after horrid meeting knowing that none of it made any difference.

I was so sick of those meetings. After one of them I found myself walking through the streets of Sage. They’d been planning a parade, but it was miserable, and it was sad to look at. For once in my life I didn’t want to see them. I didn’t want to deal with the realities around me.

And then Grace laid her hand on my cheek and told me to look.

I know how it sounds. Grace is supposed to be an abstract construct that the charity invokes to guilt-trip their volunteers. She’s not real, she’s an idea, she’s something you feel. We were supposed to be graciousness embodied, and not the hands of Grace personified. But I knew from the second she touched me that she was real, and that I was meant to be hers.

So Grace settled a hand on me, a touch so gentle that I nearly cried from it. I wanted to ask why she’d touched me, but before the words were even fully formed in my mind, her hand turned my head, guided my gaze. And she whispered, soft as can be, “Look.”

I turned. And I looked. And what I saw… god, what I saw. I’m sure you’ve heard all sorts of horrible things in these statements. You specialize in the unusual. I bet it gets interesting. I bet you hear stories that are awful and extraordinary. So you need to understand that the worst thing about what I saw on Sage was that it was… ordinary.

I’ve seen children sobbing from the emptiness in their stomachs, and parents too exhausted to hold them and comfort them. I’ve seen violence done with reason, and I’ve seen violence done without reason, and I cannot tell you the difference between the two. I’ve seen people hurting, dying, bleeding, crying, alone.

Sage was full of suffering. The simplest kind of suffering, made all the sharper for it. It wasn’t agony or any physical pain, but there was a bone-deep tiredness that left people blank-eyed and hopeless. These people were alive, and they had been abandoned. The Golden Branch didn’t care for them. They didn’t have more resources coming, not after the Hands left. And they knew. Every single one of them knew that there was nobody looking out for them.

I walked through the streets for hours, for days, with Grace’s weight on my shoulder all the while. I met the eyes of everyone who watched me. I made my pilgrimage through the city, and at the end of it I asked what I could do. It felt a hopeless question, far too small to be answered.

And when Grace replied, it was the most obvious solution in the world. She said, “You must see them.”

Before long I was going out more and more, working less and less. At first I tried meeting people, but that wasn’t the same as seeing. It was too personal, too much like the mission that the Hands tried to force upon me. So I started climbing the buildings, watching people from roofs. It was almost funny, watching them scurry around underneath me, making patterns that they would never see. Like ants. It was like watching ants.

I got in trouble, of course. A missed shift is a fluke, and a poorly prepared presentation is a mistake, but as soon as I started skipping meetings they called me in. I used to be awfully scared of my boss. I don’t remember his name anymore. I was so good with names when I started volunteering, and now the only thing I remember about this man is the story I’m about to tell you. Isn’t that funny?

Anyway, he sat me down in his office and he said to me, “If you keep acting like this we’ll have to let you go.” He used the wrong name, too. I’ve forgotten what I was called before I found Grace, the name I was born with, but that’s the name he used. So I corrected him. I didn’t even think about it, just said that my name was Vicuna and I was doing Grace’s mission.

He laughed at me. He said, “We’re all doing Grace’s mission here.” He said, “You haven’t filed paperwork to change your name.” And then he said, “You don’t even know what Grace is.”

I felt my hands shaking by my sides. I didn’t recognize at first that I was angry. All I knew was that I was about to start screaming, but as soon as I opened my mouth I felt a pressure between my shoulderblades. I knew right away that it was Grace. She hadn’t spoken directly to me since that first day, but I still knew that feeling. She had something she wanted me to say.

So I let her truth flow through me, and I said, “Grace knows about your son.”

It was like all the air got sucked out of the room. I didn’t know he had a son until that moment. But I watched the blood drain from his face, watched his eyes fill with tears all at once. He just stared at me, mouth hanging open, fingers twitching on his desk.

I felt that push again, and I said, “She says it wasn’t your fault.” And his whole body went slack. He collapsed and buried his head in his hands and wept. It was horrible, listening to him, but not in the way you’re probably imagining. It wasn’t painful for me. It was boring.

I waited until he stopped crying and sat up. I said, “My name is Vicuna,” and he nodded. I said, “I’m going to be missing more of my work,” and he nodded again, head bobbing like a marionette. With a dozen words I’d reduced him to a shell of a person, someone who could only listen.

You know that saying, knowledge is power? That was the moment I realized the power that Grace had given me.

My ascent through the ranks was subtle enough that I don’t think anyone noticed what was happening until I was already in charge. I was so precious with my power at first, using Grace’s words like a scalpel. I manipulated my way out of working, and then into assigning new work to other people.

I was focused on company business, so to speak. And it was working. I was fixing Sage. I’d been introducing everyone to Grace, and they were all carrying out my instructions. They understood. Or they were afraid. It’s all the same, really. But I was laser-focused on the Hands. I was thinking so small. I was thinking too kindly.

The change started with a child. I don’t know why. There was nothing special about her. I was doing my daily walk through the streets and I found her playing on the sidewalk, rolling a ball back and forth by herself.

So I stopped to play with her, a rare indulgence. I let her roll the ball to me, helped her get better at aiming and tossing and catching. All the normal things you do with children. I heard someone walking towards me, and I knew it was her mother, the way that I know things.

I turned around, and the mother opened her mouth. It felt like she was going to rebuke me. She probably knew who I was. I didn’t want to stop playing with the girl, so I cast my mind out to Grace to find what would get this woman to leave us alone.

Grace’s answer was something predictable about the woman’s sister. But I knew that wouldn’t be enough. She would want to linger, to ask questions. I wanted something that would get her to stop completely, and allow me to do what I wanted.

There was an answer, lingering in the back of my mind. A secret floating through my mind like a breeze, something new, something fresh. Something I could use.

So I said, “Your father has never forgiven you.”

The effect was instant. She stumbled back, face ashen, and landed hard on the sidewalk. Her daughter didn’t bat an eye, and neither did I. The two of us ignored her and kept playing until I was done, and I said goodbye, and I left. I don’t know what it was about that girl that changed things, but I suddenly knew that I had to keep doing this. Acting gracefully would only get me so far. The key wasn’t kindness, it was knowledge. It was control.

After that it was easy. It was like I’d stepped across a threshold I hadn’t even realized was there, and the possibilities open to me were endless. Why had I been wasting my time with the Hands? They were small. I already knew which strings to pull, but this time I was not so delicate. I was ruthless, and I rearranged the group on Sage, and before long the Hands belonged to me.

I’m assuming you know the rest of the story from the news, so I’ll spare you the details. Yes, I led the coup on Sage. In the most technical sense, I am in charge of the planet now. I know some people call me a dictator, but I don’t think that’s quite right. I’m open to any challenges to my power. I simply know that I’ll win.

I still have the Hands on my side. The Sector doesn’t classify them as a charity anymore. Last I heard they hadn’t decided if it was more accurate to call them paramilitary or terrorist. Petty distinctions, if you ask me.

And I still have Grace with me. The first time I felt her touch my shoulder, it felt motherly. It felt kind. There’s nothing motherly about her now. Now, she tells me to stand straight and speak sharply. She tells me that the kindest thing I can do for people is to prevent them from hurting themselves. She tells me I must control them, and in order to control them I must see.

Some days I wonder if it’s still her. How could I not? She’s so different now. Perhaps she’s been replaced by something colder. But does it matter? Whoever she is, she has given me power, and she has allowed me to protect my people. How can I care which voice is whispering in my ear when this is what she gives me?

There’s one more thing: a question, one that I’m asked nearly daily now that everyone knows about Grace. They ask me if Grace talks about them. They want to know if they’re immune to my powers. The secretary, the one who showed me into this room, is going to ask me. They’re the type.

The answer is yes, Grace knows about them. I know. I will tell the secretary that they are not their parents’ favorite child. If that isn’t enough, I will tell them how many days it is until their lover leaves them. They will not ask foolish questions again. They will permit others to have their privacy. That is the power I hold.

Do you understand what I mean about the greater good? I know I cause pain, but I use it as a way to protect. Grace thinks that’s awfully kind of me, and I’m inclined to agree. I know I’m hated. I know I’m feared. But isn’t it worth it to keep people safe? Isn’t the greater good worth hurting people?

Like I said, I get to make that decision. And I say that it is.


	2. Integrity / Web

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Statement of Sokrates Nikon Artemisios, regarding their time on Slighter and the ensuing revolution on Apostolos.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: mentioned war/violence, non-graphic death, manipulation

You secretary called me by name when I walked in. It was a nice change of pace, actually. Most people don’t acknowledge me so far. It’s like I’ve become so notorious that they don’t recognize me anymore. It’s pointless, of course. Everyone recognizes me. But it’s sweet that people try.

Of course, whether they try to hide it or not, just about everyone has opinions about me. Normally they think I’m either a traitor or a revolutionary, with no middle ground between. Maybe you’re one of those people. Maybe you’re hoping this is the piece that bridges the gap and makes it all make sense. Did something force the poor Demarch to revolt? Was there something horrifying behind the scenes, lurking around the corners?

It would be easier if that were true. It would be easier if everything I did weren’t worth everything that came after. Wouldn’t it be better if I could sit down and tell you the horror story you’re hoping for? A truth revealed. A traitor redeemed. A nice little bow to put on history.

But that’s not true. I acted with integrity. I always believed in what I was doing. And that makes the story much harder to tell.

Let me start from the beginning.

Once upon a time, there was a middle child. This was a very special middle child, because they were actually the middle scion of Apostolos. But they knew they would never have to be the first scion, or the Apokine, and they were happy about it. They were the funny, charming one out of their siblings, the popular one at dinner parties. They made friends, they told jokes, and they were allowed the freedom to be a person instead of simply a scion. They were young. They were happy.

Our story proper begins with a war. Our happy middle scion already does military research, so they leap at the chance to help their people. Honor and duty, and all that. They’re young and bright-eyed, and they don’t know about real honor yet. They don’t know about real war. So they volunteer to help.

The war wages on, as wars do, and our scion gets to thinking, which is dangerous during a war. And after a while, they come to the most dangerous conclusion of them all: they’re on the wrong side. They’re still so brave and so naive, and so they leave their side to go to the right one.

One day, the war ends - sorry, I’m not going to get caught up in the gory details here - and when the dust clears, our scion is not a scion anymore. They’re not a leader or a scientist or anything. They’re just a person, like they always wanted to be, and it is better and worse and harder than they ever imagined.

What our not-a-scion learned during the war is that most people in a war don’t care about what is right. They care about what keeps them alive. It’s a miracle they got the privilege of both. A rare honor, indeed.

So, our not-a-scion goes to Slighter, and they become a farmer. We’re going to skip ahead a little bit now, because I don’t think you want to hear about the ins and outs of farming. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fun story, but that’s not why you’re here. You’re hoping for something macabre to gossip about with your friends. Something juicy.

Unfortunately, the catalyst for the next phase of our farmer’s life isn’t terribly interesting. It’s a thought, a tiny whisper in the back of their head, years after the end of the war. Our farmer is working, toiling in the fields, and they think to themself, “Shouldn’t things be different?” It’s not a revolutionary thought; it’s one they’ve had every day. You’ve probably thought it too. You’ve looked around your community and thought, “Huh, I want some change.” It’s not unusual. It certainly wasn’t unusual for our farmer.

They push the thought down, of course. Wanting change before had gotten them into a war, and then thrown violently out of a war. Wanting change had made them into the story that parents tell their children as a cautionary tale. “Scion Sokrates was disloyal,” they’d say in hushed voices, “and now they’re gone. Do you want to be gone, little baby? Of course you don’t.”

So our farmer tries to ignore that thought, but the problem is, it keeps coming back. It changes shape, too, which makes it more dangerous. They’re not just thinking about things being different. They’re thinking about things being better, or more fair, or more right.

Ugh, strike that last one. There’s a thin line between integrity and righteousness.

But eventually our farmer figures out that it’s not self-righteousness whispering in their ear. If anything, it’s altruism. Farmers don’t have the idyllic picture-perfect life that everyone assumes they do. Not on Slighter, not anywhere. Farm work is hard work, and it’s easy to look at what farmers do and decide that they deserve a better way of life. And then it’s easy to wonder why they don’t get paid enough to begin with, and next thing you know you’re thinking about a whole new world.

So one day, our farmer makes a mistake. It’s a teeny, tiny error in the grand scheme of things, but it’s impossible to undo. Our farmer is out at dinner with a couple farmers, drinking and trying to relax. And our farmer leans forward and says, “Don’t you think things should be different?”

Oops. The bottle’s uncorked, folks.

Now, there’s something special about Slighter that I haven’t mentioned until now, and that’s because it’s kind of a mouthful to say. It’s called the Ethnologistical Society for a More Prosperous Golden Branch. Think about social studies, and then dial it up to an extreme, and you’ve got the right idea. They do anthropological studies trying to solve… everything. They think the key to fixing the star sector is people. They’re right, of course. Just in the wrong way.

But our friends at the society have pooled a lot of resources into Slighter. That means Slighter has libraries. Slighter has research groups. Slighter has people who listen when a farmer approaches them and asks about how to make things different, and those people are so far up their own asses that they don’t notice when that farmer starts manipulating their precious results.

I shouldn’t be so hard on them. They did what they thought was the right thing. I did too. I just happened to be a little more… persuasive. I understood the farmers; I was one of them, after all. So I knew which strings to pull.

Anyways, let’s get back to our brave little farmer. They push their way into the Ethnologistical Society and they slowly, slowly do their research and their work, and nobody is the wiser. But then our farmer makes another crucial, teeny tiny decision: they start watching the news again. Big mistake, you don’t need to tell me twice. Slighter is disconnected enough that our farmer could’ve just focused on that corner of the universe and made it better. But they just had to go and see what was going on in the outside world.

Here’s another quick little story. Once upon a time, while our farmer was working hard, the Apokine makes a choice. They send Apostolosian forces to invade Torru. It’s not an out-and-out war, not yet, but it’s violent. It ruins lives. People die. It’s not a terribly good story.

Our farmer turns on the news and watches this happen. They watch as people die - their people, Torru’s people, it’s all the same, isn’t it? Our farmer - who used to be a scion, remember, and that never leaves you - watches all this. All of this. And they make a decision.

There’s still a whisper in the farmer’s head, but by now it’s not a whisper anymore. It’s not a shout, or even a voice at all. It’s an impulse. Think about it like this. Lift up your hand. Did you ask your fingers to move, or did they just move? That’s what it’s like. It’s not a choice.

So the farmer, both impulse and hand, goes to Torru. They cry their rallying cry: “Don’t you think it could be different?” The words are their own, as much as any words are these days, and it works. Some people on Torru lay down their weapons. The farmer says, “Don’t you think we deserve better?” And those still holding weapons turn them towards the Apokine. The farmer says, “Don’t you think we are better?” And all of the people say, in one resounding voice, “Yes, we are.”

Now. Let me ask you something. What does change look like?

There are two answers. The first is an earthquake. It rips the world apart between one second and the next. I could’ve been the earthquake at any point. I could’ve gone in a year after the war and ripped Apostolos asunder. But there was something tethering me to Slighter, something that kept me bound tight until I was ready to return home.

Because there is a second answer: erosion. And that’s slow. That rips mountains down, grain by grain by grain of sand. That’s how a drop becomes a puddle becomes a lake becomes an ocean. That’s thinking things should be different, should be better, can be better, I can make them better.

An earthquake is a disaster. But an earthquake under a reservoir? An earthquake underneath ground that’s eroded away, an earthquake that causes a flood? That’s a cataclysm. That’s a world washed clean. With any luck I’ll be remembered as the flood, but when have I ever been lucky?

Our farmer returns home, by the way. That’s how the story ends. Our farmer returns home and kills the Apokine. Was it their choice? It’s hard to say. Maybe they were the impulse. Maybe they were the hand. There was never another way forward. Dozens of ways out, but only one way forward.

Our farmer is the demarch now. You probably put that together.

You may call me Demarch Sokrates. You may call me a leader, a revolutionary, a traitor, anything you want. I promise I’ve heard it before, so don’t be shy. I’ve actually started giving out cash rewards when people come up with new ones. They get creative, it’s pretty fun. Monster comes up a lot. Am I a monster? Maybe. It probably depends which angle you’re looking from.

Do you understand now why this is not a horror story? Do you understand why that makes it more horrible? Maybe it would’ve been better if I’d made the choice on my own. Maybe it would’ve been better if I never had, and if there was a monster controlling me.

But knowing that it’s both? Knowing that there was a monster, and I agreed with it? Still wondering, even now, if I’m the impulse or the hand?

Well. There’s no way to put a nice little bow on that particular story.


	3. Loyalty / Corruption

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Statement of Kobus, regarding their time as the director of the research group Vox Lux.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: manipulation, and also Kobus is a teenager dealing with being misled by people in power

I am going to leave Vox Lux.

It’s the first thing I think every morning. I open my eyes and I think, “I’m going to leave today. I brush my teeth and look in the mirror and I think, “Today, it’s today.” I go to my office and I think, “This will be the last time I’m here.”

I mean it every time I say it. That might seem strange, considering that I haven’t actually left yet, but every day I fully intend to leave. I’m not supposed to be at Vox Lux anymore. I’ve been there for too long already.

I actually managed to get on a shuttle offworld once. It was fantastic until I had a panic attack as we were taking off, and they had to keep me on Vox because that counts as a medical crisis. I wish I could say that I’ve stayed since then because of that, because of anxiety or medical issues. But that’s not why.

I was just a kid when I got to Vox. Some people would say I’m still a kid, sure, but I know that I lost the privilege of childhood a long time ago. I was a kid when Vox Lux found me - when they picked me. I’m not anymore.

It wasn’t bad in the beginning. I wish I could say that it were, that I always hated it, but that’s not the truth. They loved me. They trusted me. They took me seriously, which is essential when you’re just a kid. I was an unquestioned leader, a teenage prodigy, an icon that deserved everything they got and more. And beyond that, I was part of the community.

Being a child prodigy is the kind of thing that overwrites your identity. I wasn’t just Kobus anymore. I was Kobus of Vox Lux, all one phrase. I was a leader. I was praised in public, but I had a private, steadfast certainty that I was loved. I had their loyalty, and they had mine.

So of course I ignored the red flags when they first came around. I didn’t even think of them as red flags. I was young and stupid and wanted to be loved, so it didn’t matter when I first noticed that I was out of the loop. What did a couple of locked doors or secret meetings matter? I was Kobus of Vox Lux. I stupidly thought that they couldn’t be Vox Lux without me.

Looking back, I don’t remember being just a kid. Do you know what I mean? The things kids do, playing with friends or whatever, that was never a part of my life. I was in business meetings before I was ten years old. They always told me I was too smart to do anything else. They said I owed it to the world to do something greater.

It’s funny. I don’t really remember who “they” were.

See, I was never so lucky as to have a family, or specific people who cared about me. For as long as I can remember I was passed around between a slew of teachers, all of them trying to show me… something. I was smart. I learned. I learned, eventually, not to cling to any one of them. They would always pass me along.

So maybe that’s why I clung to Vox Lux for so long. There was no individual person there that I cared about any more or less, but they all cared about me. I was director before I was fifteen - they’re one of the biggest research institutions in the star sector, and I was leading them. Of course, I didn’t know what I was doing, but I was fifteen and refused to let anyone know that. I was aggressively confident. I wanted them to follow me.

The locked doors didn’t bother me. None of the red flags did. There had always been a few roadblocks just by virtue of my age. I had assistants and deputies who took care of the things I couldn’t. It wasn’t an issue.

No, the issue wasn’t what was kept out. It was what was let in.

Everyone in the sector knows the September Institute. How could you not? They’re the foremost contributor to stratus research, and they do spectacular work with young people. My teachers always joked about sending me off to September. They’re just as prestigious as Vox Lux. I never trusted them, of course - who trusts their competitor? - but I always respected them. From a healthy distance.

So imagine my surprise the day I went through some files and discovered that Vox Lux had a partnership with September. An old partnership at that. It turned out that a lot of my senior advisors had been on old September payrolls. Most of those employees were my senior advisors, too. They weren’t plants, exactly, nothing so clandestine as that. But I was always smart. And I was certainly smart enough to notice this pattern.

I started asking around, beginning with the people whose names weren’t on the list. The ones I assumed were loyal to me. In hindsight I know that was a mistake. I should’ve known they were loyal to Vox Lux. But I always thought that I was Vox Lux.

My closest deputies, the ones who weren’t on the list, were concerned. Not in a condescending way, but in an authentic way. The way you would be concerned if your boss started asking about competitors infiltrating your business. They promised to look into it and report back on this very serious matter.

Except then… none of them did.

It took me a while to realize. I was expecting it would happen soon, and then I was expecting updates with apologies for the delay. But then I started asking them, and they kept saying they’d meet with me soon. And then they said eventually. And then they stopped answering, and after a while I stopped asking, too.

So there I was, in the same place I’d always been, but my eyes were open. I was realizing, painfully slowly, that I wasn’t as in charge as I had always assumed I was. Of course I wasn’t, I was a child, but it rocked the world beneath my feet.

Have you ever tried to pick up a piece of fruit that’s gone bad? Sometimes it doesn’t even look rotten. There’s an orange, sitting there, perfectly intact, perfectly round. But when you try and pick it up your fingers go through the peel, because there’s nothing inside. It’s all rotten and empty.

I had tried to pick up the orange. And I punctured the whole world I lived in.

Once I noticed, it was all I could notice. I had an empty schedule most days, the luxury of being a director so far above meetings. But suddenly the emptiness was haunting. Why was I only speaking with my top advisors once a week? Surely as the director I should be the one making the decisions, not being updated on the decisions that other people made. Or was that how it worked? Why hadn’t I ever questioned it before?

My office was empty and void of decoration. It had always felt like the adult thing to do, so professional and sleek, but it felt ominous now. Why was there nothing inside? Would I have kept my footing, my authority, if I’d had a potted plant or thrown a staff party? Was I embedded enough on the inside? Or were they going to knock me loose?

Before I knew it everything was rotten. I would ask my secretary to do something and she would give me this sickly sweet smile, so sweet that I couldn’t stand to look at her. And none of my food tasted right anymore. It didn’t matter if I ordered it, made it myself, had someone else make it for me, even took someone else’s food out of the fridge. It all tasted wrong, no matter what I tried.

And believe me, I tried. Nothing I did changed anything. I would fill my calendar with meetings and appointments of all kinds, and then watch them disappear one by one until it disintegrated into nothing. I would burst into secret meetings that I heard about in snatches of office gossip, and nobody would so much as look at me until I was escorted out.

I think they never expected that I would try. And the worst part is that for so long, they were right. I was so happy thinking I was in charge that I was never a real leader, and that gap was enough room for September to wriggle in and take over. I thought that I was leading a company, but it was empty. It was always empty.

I’m still the director, actually. They haven’t replaced me. But it’s a ceremonial title at this point. It’s all September, creeping in and whispering to Vox Lux. Whispering to me, really. Manipulating me. Making me theirs.

I blamed myself for so long. In some ways I still do. It’s like there are two voices inside my brain. One says that I couldn’t have known. I was a child, a remarkably naive child. I never had to be responsible. That voice tells me that I was used. But the other voice says that it was my job to know. It was my job to be involved instead of just basking in the praise. It was my job to learn and try and work, and I did not work and so I failed.

One of the voices inside me is rotten. It scares me that I don’t know which one it is.

Informally speaking, Vox Lux has become an extension of the September Institute. Oh, there’s nothing on the record, but you can see it if you look. It’s a husk of what it used to be. All it does is repeat after September. It’s not what I want, but I can’t help it. I tried to steer things back on course, but you can’t save something this rotten.

So the question becomes, how do you leave a sinking ship? I don’t know yet. I’m scared of the water beneath me, of what’s waiting if I leave. I haven’t been off of Vox as long as I can remember. Part of me worries that I won’t exist anywhere else. Not in a literal sense, but in the sense that I won’t know how. Like I’ve breathed in poison for so long that clean air would suffocate me.

And now I wake up every morning, and I look in the mirror, and I think, “I’m going to leave today.” And then I go to my empty office with the people that are empty inside, and I do nothing because they emptied me out too. I don’t know who I am without Vox Lux. I always thought that we were one and the same, and now I’m scared that’s what’s condemning me. I can’t excise the rot. I didn’t even notice it was there.

I think that’s what I’m most afraid of. I am the orange, and if you poke through me, you will find nothing at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much @truthfulbell on Twitter/ Kalcifer here on Ao3 for letting me play in your sandbox. It is a truly incredible idea and this was so much fun.
> 
> You can find me on Tumblr and Twitter @waveridden.


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